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Greetings!

It's
less than a week until November 2, the last day of voting in our
national elections for the U.S. President and U.S. House and of key
state and local elections -- among them the first use of instant runoff
voting (IRV) in San Francisco and citizen votes on IRV ballot measures
in Ferndale (MI) and Burlington (VT). I'll be at the polls with my
family that day, but about a quarter of voters this year will voted
early in person or by mail.

Busy times here at the Center.
Yesterday staffers were on a Washington, D.C. public radio program as a
guest, made a presentation to visiting journalists from Iraq, talked
with numerous reporters and prepared new analyses of our elections.
Steven Hill in San Francisco is continuing to run our intensive voter
educationwork on instant runoff voting in next week's San Francisco
elections. Our chairman John Anderson published a strong commentary
calling for reform in the Chicago Tribune, while Steven Hill and I had
newcommentary on modernizing elections circulated by Knight Ridder

We
have important news to pass on below, but before getting to that news
and as we prepare to settle in for what promises to be a long evening
(and indeed a long month if the race is tight), keep in mind....

*
THE FROZEN HOUSE: The U.S. House of Representatives was envisioned as
the most responsive wing of our federal government. It hasn't turned
out that way. The House has changed partisan controla grand total
of once in the past 50 years -- even as the presidency regularly
changes parties. Since 1996, more than 90% of all races have been won
by comfortable margins of more than 10%, andmore than 98% of incumbents have been re-elected. Only one incumbent lost in 2002 who was not a victim of redistricting.

Expect
more of the same this year for Congress, and state legislative races
generally provide more of the same -- two in five such races will be
walkovers without a major party opponent this year. See ourreports and our call for full representation voting methods at: ">">http://archive.fairvote.org/library/geog/congress/index.html

*
A DISRESPECTED RIGHT: Americans citizens care deeply about their right
to vote. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for how their
government provides and protects that right. The lack of a right to
vote in the U.S. Constitution has a direct impact on our elections. The
news this fall is full of state and local actions that will
disenfranchise voters and result in confusion at the polls.

Florida
and Ohio will toss out all "provisional ballots" cast by registered
voters who were not informed they were in the wrong polling place. A
Nevada state judge rejected a lawsuit seeking to re-open voter
registration for citizens whose registrations were torn up by a
partisan voter registration firm rather than submitted. Most voters in
Ohio will use the thoroughly discredited punchcard system, while many
others around the nation will vote on new "touchscreen" systems
developed by private companies withproprietary software that is
poorly tested and regulated and lacks a voter verifiable paper trail.
Against all international norms, states collectively have stripped
voting rights from nearly five millionAmerican citizens due to
felony convictions. Tens of thousands of people are on the voting rolls
of more than one states, yet overall, states have failed to register
nearly one out of every three American adults.

The expected
chaos and confusion has inspired swarms of lawyers ready to pounce on
flaws, meaning once again judges could effectively pick our president.
If you see problems in your county and state, please call a hotline set
up to handle concerns at: 1-866-our-vote

*
INDIRECT ELECTION: All signs indicate another razor-thin election in
2004 that easily could hinge on how a few hundred votes are counted --
or not counted -- in the large ground zero states of Florida, Ohio and
Pennsylvania no matter what the national popular vote. That's why the
odds are you haven't heard from a presidential campaign this year. More
than 14,000 television ads have aired in Toledo, Ohio. In contrast,
most Americans live where not one presidential ad has aired.

States
today are either heavily courted or completely ignored. President
Bush's campaign has not done any polling outside of the 18 battleground
states in more than two years. Indeed most states are completely
ignored under today's system. Contrast that with direct elections,
which are well-tested - it's how we elect every other significant
office in the nation. You can't afford to ignore potential support in a
competitive environment where every vote counts the same. Even if a
presidential candidate won every single vote in the ten biggest states
(a shutout that will never happen), they still would be far short of a
majority of the vote. Candidates would have to seek votes everywhere,
still having to be sensitive to local concerns just like anygubernatorial candidate has to listen to different parts of a state.

Having
a fair election for president has no impact on federalism and the U.S.
Senate. And it does something about an institution that amounts to a
ticking time bomb. Consider:

- If there is a 269-269 Electoral
College tie, then the House picks the president, with each state's
delegation having one vote - an utter disaster for democracy. The
Senate would pick the vice-president, possibly from another party.

-
When regional third party candidates like George Wallace in 1968 and
Strom Thurmond in 1948 win electoral votes, such candidates' electors
could hold the balance of power. Unlike an instant runoff voting system
in direct elections, where outreach to supporters of third party
candidates would be immediatelytested at the polls, negotiations among presidential electors would be secret and hard to hold accountable.

-
If the president-elect were to die before electors cast their ballots,
there is no way to know what would happen. Few know the electors who
would pick our president.

- Some states try to bind electors to
the state popular vote winner, but such laws may not pass
constitutional scrutiny. Much mischief is possible; already one
Republican elector in West Virginia has vowed not to vote for Bush.

-
State legislatures have the authority to appoint presidential electors
regardless of that state's vote - as Florida's legislature was ready to
do in 2000.

-Finally, even though more than 100 million people
voted in the 2000 elections, only a relatively small number of those
votes were decisive. Indeed the winner would have been exactly the sameeven if nearly 80 million of those voters had stayed home.

Here's what we mean:

- 105,396,641 is the total number votes cast nationwide in the 2000 Presidential election.

-
48,467112 is the total number of votes cast for candidates in states
that they did not win. If these votes had not been cast, the Electoral
College divide between George Bush and Al Gorewould have been exactly the same.

- 26,353,058 is the total number of votes cast for Bush in the 30 states that Bush won.

- 21,835,615 is the minimum number of votes Bush needed in order to win the 30 states that earned him the Presidency

Thus,
to win the Electoral College and the presidency, Bush only needed
21,835,615 votes out of a total of 105,396,641 votes cast -- 21% of the
total popular vote.

Before continuing onto news, I wanted to thank those of you who
tried to help elect Malia Lazu as Showtime's "American Candidate."
Malia ended up finishing second, losing in the final round of voting --
but kudos to her and her fellow FairVote Board member Rashad Robinson
for getting as far as they did on the show....

# # HIGH-PROFILE COVERAGE OF INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING

The
Washington Post ran an excellent news story about instant runoff voting
in San Francisco and a strong commentary from its syndicated columnist
William Raspberry that talked in part about IRV in San Francisco. Here
are links to the stories and excerpts.

When
voters here go to the polls in November to select their top choice for
a seat on the city's Board of Supervisors, they also get to pick their
second choice -- and even their third.

Here, a winning candidate
has to receive at least 50 percent of the vote for the Board of
Supervisors, which is the local city council. In the past, if nobody
did, there was a runoff election.

But this year, San Francisco
has become the largest city in the nation to adopt a form of voting
that proponents say is a little like walking into an ice cream shop to
order a chocolate cone only to discover the shop is all out -- no
problem, just order your next favorite flavor, and if that's out, your
third...

..."With runoffs, you have two different electorates
going to the polls," said Steven Hill, with the Center on Voting and
Democracy, which has been pushing ranked-choice voting in
municipalities across the country. "This way you elect the strongest
candidate who has the majority of the vote and you're getting it over
with in one race. It's just common sense."...

...One of the more interesting electoral reforms is underway in San
Francisco, where voters next month will select their top choice for a
seat on the city's Board of Supervisors -- but also have a chance to
mark their second and third choices.

If you think this doesn't
sound like much, you ought to talk to Rob Richie, executive director of
the Center for Voting and Democracy and my frequent guide on voting
systems. Three things about the rank-voting system appeal to Richie.

First,
it increases the likelihood that any particular voter will have helped
to elect a candidate to office, a fact that Richie believes might help
to reduce voter apathy. Second, it makes it possible for a voter to
support a dark-horse candidate --say, a third-party hopeful -- without
helping his least favorite candidate in the process. Say John McCain is
on the ballot and he is your first choice. Under the present system, a
votefor McCain would be a vote taken away from your second
favorite, Bush, and in effect a vote for John Kerry. Under a rank-order
system, either your first choice wins or your vote goes to your second
choice.

But what really excites Richie about the system is that
it tends to drive candidates and campaigns toward coalition-building
and civility. "The present system leads candidates to sharpen, even
exaggerate, their differences with their challengers," he says. "The
result is a sort of polarization that marginalizes moderates of both
parties. But the candidate who thinks he may need your second-choice
vote to winwill tend to reach out to -- or at least not antagonize -- voters whose first choice is someone else."

The
people simply aren't as polarized as the system paints them. Florida
wound up being a red state, though virtually half of its voters were
blue. The truth is, with a small handful of exceptions, the states are
various shades of purple...

# # INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING NEWS

* This month Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D -IL) introduced a
pair of bills aimed at election reform. H.R.5293 would require states
to conduct general elections for Federal office using instant runoff
voting. H.J.R. 109 would amend the Constitution to abolish the
electoral college and provide for direct election of the president by
majority vote. Please urge your Members to support these bills. To
track fair election voting systems legislation that was introduced in
2003-2004 in Congress and around the nation, see">">http://archive.fairvote.org/action/index.html

*
Ferndale, Michigan is one of two jurisdictions voting on IRV ballot
measures on November 2. The Detroit Free Press has endorsed the
Ferndale measure. Following the recommendations of a blueribbon
commission, Burlington, Vermont is voting on an advisory measure to
adopt IRV. The Ballot Initiative Strategies Center has analyzed a
number of ballot measures on reform. For more, see:">">http://archive.fairvote.org/op_eds/detroitfp102104.htm (Detroit News)" />">http://www.firv.org/ (Ferndale campaign advocates)">">http://ballot.org/spotlight/campaignspotlight.html (BISC analysis)

* Steven Hill and Caleb Kleppner have created a good resource on IRV in San Francisco. See " />">http://www.sf-rcv.com/

*
British Columbia citizen's assembly on electoral reform -- an exciting
new approach to achieving citizen consensus before going to the ballot
-- voted overwhelmingly to replace winner-take-all elections with the
full representation version of IRV -- what we call "choice voting" and
is also called the "single transferable vote." More than 90 per cent of
the assembly's 153 members voted to recommend British Columbia
residents get an opportunity to decide between the current system and
the assembly's preferred choice, which supporters argued makes every
vote count. For more on reforms in Canada, see: ">">http://archive.fairvote.org/pr/global/canadaer.htm

*
The New Voters Project involved thousands of a young people in a
process where they ultimately asked 10 questions of presidential
candidates John Kerry, George Bush and Ralph Nader. A question about
instant runoff voting and full representation was voted as one of the
questions to task. The presidential candidates mostly dodged the answer
(the Green Party candidate David Cobb would have been the one most
likely to take it on, as he frequently advocates for fair election in
interviews), but it was just the latest indicator of how young people
like fair election voting methods. See question #5 at">">http://youthdebate.newvotersproject.org/questions_responses_rebuttals.html

# #

FAIRVOTE REPS ON NPR, CNN ND HIGH-PROFILE VENUES

FairVote's
executive director Rob Richie, senior analyst Steven Hill, chairman
John Anderson, program director David Moon and other program staff have
been busy this election season, averaging more than one appearance on
talk radio programs a day in stations around the nation (including the
highly rated New England station WRKO, among many others -- often
through the assistance of the Mainstream Media Project) and steadily
talking to and being quoted by print journalists. In the past month
Richie has also addressed classes at Duke and Princeton and visiting
delegations from nations such as Iraq, Moldova, Thailand and two
different election observer groups with representatives from nations
all over the world.

*
On October 26, Hill was the featured speaker at a program at San
Francisco's venerable Commonwealth Club to discuss the upcoming use of
instant runoff voting in San Francisco.

* On October 21, Richie
was on Warren Olney's "To the Point" program to talk about
gerrymandering and full representation. The program, which appears on
National Public Radio stations around the nation, can be heard by going
to: ">">http://www.kcrw.com/show/tp

*
On October 20, Richie was a live guest on the highest-rated national
morning program in Canada, CTV Canada AM. He also appeared in an
interview on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation the week before.

*
On October 18, Richie was featured on Lou Dobbs' show on CNN to talk
about problems with our electoral process. Excerpts from his interview
ran on CNN news throughout the day on October 19

Watch
history unfold at the Couch Pundit Extravaganza, and help the cause of
election reform by supporting FairVote. Big screen TV, private room
and happy hour drink prices all night. Come watch the returns and
ake predictions on swing state outcomes -- you may win one of the
nght's prizes. Commentary from a roster of guest speakers.

Cover
donation is $10 (proceeds go to support the work of FairVote). Call
301-270-4616 or go online to fairvote.org for more information

*
Recent media coverage: Full representation, instant runoff voting,
competitive elections and comments by representatives of FairVote, the
Center for Voting and Democracy continue to be featured in major media
around the nation. Highlights include new editorial support for IRV
from several newspapers (including in the past few weeks are new
published commentaries from FairVote staffers, examples of the numerous
articles quoting FairVote representatives and the latest newspaper
editorials supporting instant runoff voting in the Bradenton Herald,
San Jose Mercury News, Wichita Eagle, Wilmington Star-News and
Corvallis Gazette Times. (October 27)

* FairVote's chairman and senior staff publish commentaries: John Anderson calls for reform in the Chicago Tribune and Rob Richie
and Steven Hill publish commentaries on "loser take all," "time to
modernize elections" and Proposition 62 in California (October 26)

*
An analysis of state legislative elections shows a rise in the
percentage of uncontested races to nearly two out of every five seats.
(October 8)

* Major news attention to IRV in San Francisco in
New York Times, L.A. Times and San Francisco Chronicle and is featured
on National Public Radio's Morning Edition . (September 30)

*
With the passing of all relevant primaries, a completed analysis of the
chances for women in the U.S. House of Representatives is now
available. (September 15)

* Minnesota city to study IRV and fair
election methods: The city council of Hopkins, which was once elected
by choice voting, has established a task force to study fair election
voting methodslike instant runoff voting. (August 26)

* New report shows voters understand cumulative voting at work:Well over 98% of voters used all four of their votes without error in
Amarillo's May 2004 cumulative voting election, according to a new
report by Professor David Rausch. (August 25)

* FairVote's Election Data Project: The record of state legislative elections in the United States is lacking. Help document out electoral history. (August 15)

* Australian political scientist publishes new article on "The Global Spread of Preferential Voting" (August 11)

*
Rob Richie in print: FairVote's executive director has written four
articles, including one with Steven Hill, for a book and two journals.
Available as downloads, they are: on the American full representation
campaign from "Steps Toward Making Every Vote Count: Electoral System
Reform in Canada and its Provinces" (Henry Milner, editor; Broadview
Press, 2004); on instant runoff voting for an "Election Law Journal"
symposium on Democracy and Elections in North America" (Volume 3,
Number 3 2004); on full representation and redistricting reform (from
the National Civic Review); and on building a pro-democracy movement in
the United States (from the National Civic Review). (August 1)

*
Howard Dean's July 26 syndicated column calls for IRV in presidential
primaries: The former Democratic Party presidential frontrunner expands
on his IRV advocacy. (July 30)

* FairVote Board member and
long-time New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg's new book "Politics:
Observations and Arguments" features commentary about the value of
electoral reform, in particular full representation and instant runoff
voting Read a recent interview with the author. (July 7)

* The
Washington Post publishes an op-ed defending full representation in
Iraq: Andrew Reynolds explains why Iraq will use a party list form of
full representation in its January 2005 elections. (July 6)

*
FairVote commentaries tout IRV: Rob Richie joins with Steven Hill to
propose direct election of the President and to ask in the Nation
Magazine why more Democrats aren't seeking to implement IRV. Richie and
Jennifer Ambler argue in the Myrtle Beach Sun News that IRV is a big
improvement over traditional delayed runoffs. (June 28)

* Washington state Democrats support fair election voting methods:The Democratic Party State Platform Committee of Washington has endorsed attention to IRV and full representation. (June 14)

*
London mayoral race decided by IRV, council chosen by full
representation: London mayor Ken Livingstone (first elected in 2000 by
IRV as an independent) was re-elected on June 10 by a limited form of
instant runoff voting. IRV was needed as he won less than 40% of first
choices. The mixed member formof full representation was used to
elect the council. Voter turnout was up from 2000. Read an article in
the Guardian and see the London election webpage. (June 12)

*
FairVote conducts demonstration elections with IRV and choice voting at
several events. Read how League of Women Voters members voted on the
most influential women in American history and how various groups voted
on whom John Kerry should select as his running mate. Read results of a
Nation magazine election with more than 10,000 participants. (June 11) )

*
North Dakotans strongly rejected a proposed state constitutional
amendment to lift the requirement that corporations use the full
representation method of cumulative voting. South Korea soon will
require all corporate boards to be elected by cumulative voting. (June
8)

* Maine adopts legislation to fund study on IRV: This spring
Maine's governor signed LD 212, a resolution requiring the Secretary of
State to study the feasibility of using IRV in Maine elections. (June 3)

##

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FairVote-The Center for Voting and
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headed by former Congressman and presidential candidate John B.
Anderson. We are devoted to increasing public understanding of American
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